Acting on Our Conscience, Nov 2009

I am one of the selected signatories on this historical November 30, 2009 statement, urging Cuban authorities to free the imprisoned dissident, Afro-Cuban civil rights activist, Dr. Darsi Ferrer. Other signatories on the statement include Cornel West, Melvin Van Peebles, Ruby Dee Davis, Susan Taylor, Kathleen Cleaver, Ron Walters, James E. Turner, Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A Wright, and the author of the statement, David Covin, Professor Emeritus, University of California at Sacramento, Past President of National Conference of Black Political Scientists, among others.

Dr. Darsi Ferrer was freed from prison on June 22, 2010, less than seven months after our statement was released. Amnesty International had declared Dr. Darsi Ferrer to be “a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for his activism to promote freedom of expression.”

ACTING ON OUR CONSCIENCE A DECLARATION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SUPPORT FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE IN CUBA

We, the undersigned, join the growing international outcry against the unjust imprisonment by Cuban authorities of Dr. DARSI FERRER, an internationally known Afro Cuban civil rights leader and courageous man who for 17 days has endured a hunger strike and placed his life at risk to draw attention to the conditions of racism and racial discrimination in Cuba that has hitherto been ignored.

We support the position of the Honorable Professor ABDIAS NASCIMENTO, historical leader of the Black Movement of Brazil, and others from around the world, who are demanding Dr. Ferrer’s immediate release from imprisonment. Moreover, we also support the demand that Cuba recognizes Dr. Ferrer as a political prisoner, rather than a “common criminal”, as is now the case. (See Professor Nascimento’s Open Letter – attached)

Dr. NASCIMENTO’s joint letter to the Heads of State of Cuba and Brazil, respectively General RAÚL CASTRO RUZ and President LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA, is unequivocal. He requests of Cuba’s President that he intervene to stop the unwarranted and brutal harassment of black citizens in Cuba who are defending their civil rights. Similarly, he requests that Brazil’s President immediately prevail on the Cuban government to safeguard the rights of Cuba’s most oppressed citizens who, in this case, happen to be more than 62% of the total population.

Professor NASCIMENTO has been a long standing supporter of the Cuban Revolution and government, but he, like we, cannot be silent in the face of increased violations of civil and human rights for those black activists in Cuba who dare raise their voices against the island’s racial system. As of late, these isolated, courageous civil rights advocates have been subject to unprovoked violence, State intimidation and imprisonment.

As African Americans, we know firsthand the experiences and consequences of denying civil freedoms on the basis of race, and we certainly understand what racial discrimination is and does to people. We have not tolerated it for ourselves, and will certainly not acquiesce in its perpetration against any other people. For that reason, we are even more obligated to voice our opinion on what is happening to our Cuban brethren a few miles away.

We support Cuba’s right to enjoy national sovereignty, and unhesitatingly repudiate any attempt at curtailing such a right. However, at this historic juncture, we also do believe that we cannot sit idly by and allow for decent, peaceful and dedicated civil rights activists in Cuba, and the black population as a whole, to be treated with callous disregard for their rights as citizens and as the most marginalized people on the island.

Racism in Cuba, and anywhere else in the world, is unacceptable and must be confronted!

We call on the authorities and Government of Cuba to immediately and unconditionally free our brother, Dr. Darsi Ferrer.

Dr. David Covin [Author of Press Release accompanying this petition package. Scroll down to view.] Professor Emeritus, University of California at Sacramento Past President, National Conference of Black Political Scientists

Evelyn Crawford Audiovisual artist

Dr. Earl Davis Former Director, Institute of African Studies, New York University

Ruby Dee Davis Actress. 2007 Academy Award Nominee

Bill Day Artist Photographer

Rev. Dr. Yvonne V. Delk (Ret) United Church of Christ

Leonard G. Dunston President Emeritus, National Association of Black Social Workers

In a landmark “Statement of Conscience by African Americans,” 60 prominent black American scholars, artists and professionals have condemned the Cuban regime’s stepped-up harassment and apparent crackdown on the country’s budding civil rights movement. This statement is the first public condemnation of racial conditions in Cuba made by black Americans.

Traditionally, African Americans have sided with the Castro regime and condemned the United States’ policies, which explicitly work to topple the Cuban government. Yet this landmark statement by prominent African Americans condemns the growing persecution waged by the Cuban government against Afro-Cuban movements.

It warns: “Racism in Cuba, and anywhere else in the world, is unacceptable and must be confronted.”

It also denounces the “callous disregard” for the “most marginalized people on the island.”

The statement also calls for the “immediate release” of Dr. Darsi Ferrer, one of black Cuba´s most prominent imprisoned civil rights leaders who has been on a hunger strike to bring attention to the crisis. A physician, Ferrer has angered Cuban authorities by setting up independent “people’s clinics” housed in private homes and garages to attend to the growing numbers of impoverished blacks who no longer receive medical attention from the state. Ferrer was jailed on criminal charges four months ago and consigned to a maximum security prison for common criminals in the outskirts of Cuba´s capital Havana.

The U.S. State Department estimates Afro-Cubans make up 62 percent of the Cuban population, with many informed observers saying the figure is closer to 70 percent.

Afro-Cubans are experiencing strong and growing instances of racism on the island, with their 25-odd civil rights movements reporting a wide-range of discriminatory practices in hiring, promotion and access to Cuba´s socialized medicine and educational system.

Young black Cubans bitterly complain of aggressive racial profiling conducted by police, and Cuba´s jail population is estimated to be 85 percent black, according to black Cuban civil rights activists. Some 70 percent of Afro-Cubans are said to be unemployed.

In such conditions, a vigorous rebirth of Cuba´s black movement, banned in the early years of the Cuban Revolution, is occurring. Cuban authorities are responding with violence and brutal civil rights violations.